Tom Flynn
Center for Inquiry — Amherst, NY
Tom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of Free Inquiry magazine, Special Projects Director of the Center for Inquiry, International, director of Inquiry Media Productions, and Director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum.
Mr. Flynn graduated from Xavier University in 1977 with a B.S. in Communications. As a communications specialist, Flynn has worked as an advertising copywriter, a corporate and industrial video-maker, and a director of photo illustration shoots. He has produced several video programs, including the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, the public education film Beyond Belief and a 13-part public affairs radio series distributed via the National Public Radio satellite system. Flynn now produces the national cable access television program, The Humanist Perspective.
A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and freethought historian, Flynn is the author of numerous articles and editorials for Free Inquiry magazine. in addition to The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, his books include two anti-religious black comedy science fiction novels, Nothing Sacred (2004), its prequel Galactic Rapture (2000), and The Trouble With Christmas (1993), a secularist critique of the holiday. He has made hundreds of radio and TV appearances in his role as the curmudgeonly "anti-Claus." He designed the museum at the birthplace of 19th century agnostic orator Robert Green Ingersoll, now open for its 15th season.
Watch part one of Tom's talk about the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, a book which he edited; it was published by Prometheus Books in 2007:
- Critical thinking
- Humanistic and naturalistic ethics
- Psychology of religious belief
- Religious extremist movements
- Religious liberty, and the civil rights of the non-religious
- Secular humanism
- Separation of church and state
- The Center for Inquiry
- The existence of God
- The humanist and skeptic movements
